A Kearney Ghost Story

Perhaps in anticipation of goblins and
ghoulies and long-legged beasties, the Kearney Weekly
Hub offered this "Kearney Ghost Story" October
3, 1890.

"There was a ghostly manifestation
at the New Midway Hotel last Thursday night shortly after
midnight, as related by one of the guests.

"One of the clerks had an experience
that came near turning his beautiful black hair gray. Last
Thursday morning workmen engaged in digging a trench for the
steam heating apparatus for the
hotel came across a human skeleton. It excited much speculation
among those of the guests
who knew of the find as to the fate of the individual whose bones
have probably lain for years
under the silent sod. There was nothing about the skeleton to
indicate what manner of man he
was in life.

"Thursday night I sat in my room til
midnight reading. I had meant to rise early in the morning
and join a hunting party. As I finished my book I remembered
that I had forgotten to place a
'call' at the office and was about to touch the electric button
and call a bell boy, when my eye
caught the projecting end of an inch and a half of steam pipe
just put in above the floor in one
corner, which led to a corner of the office three floors below.

"It will make a splendid speaking
tube, thought I, and will save the sleepy boy some hesitating
steps. I knelt down and put my mouth to the tube.

"'Ed-d-d-ie!' was the whisper which
sounded ghostly and mysterious in the quiet office.

"The boys looked at each other. Was
it the electric light that made them look so pale?

"'You there? Ed-d-d! Oh! Ed-d-d!'

"It was only when I failed to get
any answer and with my ear to the tube, I could hear the bell
boy and the night clerk moving about on the lower floor, that
I realized the ludicrous element in
my efforts.

"The night clerk was puzzled, and
the bell boy startled at the first gentle whisper of his name,
as
it broke the quiet of the midnight stillness. When it was repeated
the boys separated and
searched in the various hallways leading into the office for
the possessor of the voice.

"To say the hearers in the office
were scared only half expresses their feelings, while I rolled
on
the floor in laughter as I pictured their feelings. At last fearing
to carry the joke too far and that
they would alarm the whole house, I rapped on the pipe with a
key and called again.

"Everything was explained to the boys
when they heard the metallic sound of the raps, and they
came to the open end of the pipe in the office and took my order,
explaining that a joke's a joke,
but that the hour when the graveyards yawn is not a proper time
for one. The night clerk's hair
is still a beautiful black, but it was a close shave for him."